Oh to be 28, left-handed and with a baseball career sporting more than 100 wins and a Cy Young award. That's the resume one needs to garner a 7 year contract worth $126 million, and not even needing to move. Barry Zito, who has been a San Francisco resident during his time with the Oakland Athletics, now will drive even less each day to make his starts, donning the orange and black to toss at AT&T Park.Blez at Athletics Nation aptly describes our response - as we go through "The Five Stages of Grief". Sure, I'm disappointed we won't have Barry on our team any more. But I'm glad that he's staying nearby so we can see him pitch, glad he's not pitching in the American League, and especially in the AL West, but also, I'm dreading the nonsensical comments I'm already starting to get from Giants fan coworkers, who apparently think this makes economic sense for their poor excuse for a baseball team.
What to do now? Kristine has an "I (Heart) Zito" t-shirt she won't be wearing much longer. I'll need to delete a ton of Zito pictures I had saved up for future ANtics (though I knew they were done by the end of the year). And as a fan, I get to move on... again. Just like we said goodbye to Frank Thomas, and Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder and Miguel Tejada and Jason Giambi and Mark McGwire, we have to keep hoping the A's know what they are doing, and that we will survive. It's the only way.